


Power

by Christer_Bleu



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:58:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christer_Bleu/pseuds/Christer_Bleu
Summary: "When you play the game of thrones you win or you die."Turned back at the Trident, Robert Baratheon's rebellion ended with a whimper, the confrontation that Robert had dreamed about not coming to pass. Instead Prince Rhaegar succeeds his father, his children now left to pick up the pieces of a shattered realm and undo their father's vision.





	1. Rhaenys

**Author's Note:**

> Head canon time, not that this is an actual theory it's just something that I want to be real for this particular fanfiction. Lyanna Stark doesn't die at the Tower of Joy and instead of giving birth to Jon Snow she has a daughter first whom she names Visenya. Weakened Visenya's birth, Lyanna falls ill after her second pregnancy giving birth to twins Jaehaera and Jaehaerys (Jon Snow).

Jaehaerys had learned a new trick, it seemed, some clever twist of a blade that could disarm an opponent if executed properly more often than not. As he danced around the yard, running drills with Ser Jaime again and again. His sword work becoming cleaner and more efficient as each drill was completed, his muscles hardening as each day passed. Jaehaerys’ slavish devotion to his sword work had earned him an early knighthood and some small acknowledgement from their father. No accomplishment of Jaehaerys earned true praise from their father. Their father was a man utterly devoted to the stability of the realm and the stability of the realm did not concern the king’s second son. And so Jaehaerys lived in the shadow of Aegon, their elder brother’s shadow longer because he stood closest to the flame not because he was taller.

All of these things were apparent to her, to anyone who looked beyond the truth to what lay beneath. Jaehaerys languished on Dragonstone, not to protect him from any would be assassins sent by a man too fat and drunk by half disavowed by his kin, but because Jahaerys was accomplished and open hand would draw him admirers and his mother had been a Stark winning him the devotion of the North as their father had lost it. Oh how father must curse his own foolishness for making enemies of Dorne, the North, and the Stormlands by stealing away Lyanna Stark at Harrenhall. But how could he have known that The Mad King would err in killing Lord Stark and his heir?

Now Aegon must sit the Iron Throne to appease Dorne and Jaehaerys must remain far from the throne and the north on Dragonstone. Of course then Jaehaerys knew this, it was impossible for him not to know and be aware that their father had only given Jaehaerys more while trying to do the opposite. Jaehaerys was the Prince of Dragonstone. Perhaps that meant less, the hold the Targaryens had over the realm had been weakening since the Dance of Dragons, the tolerance for Targaryen tradition dramatically reducing in concert. Jaehaerys may hold Dragonstone but ultimately it could mean nothing, they could not be certain.

None of which meant that Aegon was anything less than the man he was, in one of the only true examples of Queen Elia and Queen Lyanna agreeing upon anything Aegon had been sent to serve as page to each of the Lords Paramount before returning to King’s Landing a man. A man who knew much of his people, a man who could lead them into a glorious age of prosperity as King Rhaegar envisioned. He had been given the chance to meet the women his lords believed he should marry, women who would ensure the loyalty of each to the realm. Or perhaps to further the aspirations of those lords, which depended upon which woman and unfortunately Aegon had taken to his duties as page with the fervor to match the piety of Baelor the Blessed and had not written of them. Pages and pages about his duties and the inner workings of the realm but nothing of women.

Which would have been unusual for another young man of power and privilege but not Aegon. Aegon had always been strange in that way. It was one of the small things that made him a Targaryen though his eyes were blue and his hair black, all Targaryens had small things as Princess Rhaella had once said. Aegon had his way around women gazing over them as if they did not exist, Daenerys and Jaehaera had their dreams, Jaehaerys had his honor, Visenya her birds, Viserys was showing signs of madness, and she – 

She had her own ways, all Targaryens did.

The sound of Jaeharys and Ser Jaime sparring in the yard faded as she retreated into the keep, seeking her sisters and grandmother. This early in the afternoon they had likely retreated into Princess Jaehaera’s solar to revel in the quieter arts, those seen as womanly or scholarly or perhaps unnecessary for any but a master. Daenerys and Jaehaera would likely be speaking of their dreams, of the things they knew but should not, impossible things they should not be able to see. She did not understand their dreams and Maester Cressen had not studied the higher mysteries at the Citadel, he claimed their dreams were unusually vivid but had no real power but Rhaenys knew power when she saw it. 

Rhaenys would use that power, use Aegon’s knowledge, Jaehaerys’ sword, Visenya’s birds and every other asset she possessed to win the grand game. There were too many swords in the dark, too many unpredictable pieces in play and too few true allies. And so another dance began, Rhaenys could not miss a step and no one had more to lose.


	2. Jaehaera

”Is there any reason, any at all in your mind to doubt?” it was a question that came frequently, far too frequently for her to have marked them all but the answer never changed. How could the answer change when the question had not since they were very small children.

”There is always reason to doubt, nothing is ever clear.” When had this dance of theirs begun? The music had begun slowly at first, halfhearted as a harper uncertain of what melody they would play, as they lay together abed.

Slowly the music would take its shape and they would dance together, not in the rigid steps of the courtier’s dance but something more natural, more organic. And her dance partner was magnificent, leading and following at a turn as this music made between them changed in its own turn. They would lay together long into the night as sleep was chased away, the phantom of the things they had seen and done stole that sweet solace away from each. The only comfort they knew in three moments was each other. But always the question came, whispered softly into the darkness that surrounded them.

gentle fingers ran through her hair, the sensation soothing her into a blissful dose that served as sleep though it was not and could never be. It was an intimacy that few knew, one that their mothers had not known with their husband, one few of their line had known. Many tales and legends spoke of chivalry and the love knights held for their ladies, spoke of the love men had for their kings and lords, spoke of these things as if it were the way of the world and the way of men.

True, there were knights who were all of the things chivalric ballads were made of noble and kind, loyal men who gave their oaths and with their oaths their lives in honest service. And then there were men who shamed great men, men with no honor to speak of and no desire to acquire any. Men who rape and pillage, men who would slay children, men who would turn their coats at the slightest indication that they could profit. There was a great potential for cruelty in those men, in all men in their own way as the sons of the Mad King could attest to, in the way that Aegon treated women, in the way Jaehaerys wielded a blade, in the way everyone treated Ser Jaime.

Sometimes she wished to tell the world the truth, that Ser Jaime had slain the Mad King to save the realm from a terrible fate. That her grandfather had intended to sacrifice himself and all of King’s Landings in wildfire to be remade a dragon, a dragon that would fly to his son’s aid and remake the realm. Whatever Rhaegar was, in the mind of King Aerys, he would have to bow before a true dragon. His brothers had known; Rhaegar had revealed the truth to the court the day he had been crowned and had the wildfire destroyed and the alchemists executed. For that reason Ser Jaime had been spared though for the crime of Kingslaying his white cloak had been stripped from him. Cast out of the brotherhood Ser Jaime had not returned to Casterly Rock, formally disavowed of his right as heir to House Lannister, he had decided to travel with the Queens to Dragonstone.

For all the cruel things men said, for all the things men accused him of, Ser Jaime had never been any of those things. Once Ser Jaime had been a boy, a boy who had been full of those stories and heroes and brave knights thrust into the realities of the world in the harshest of ways. Perhaps that was why he was so kind to them, that he knew that they would never know true kindness at court, or perhaps it was because of their grandmother – Daenerys’ mother. It mattered little his reasoning, only that the truth of them was truth and not something more. Ser Jaime was pure though his intentions towards others were not, with her Uncle Viserys clearly the winner on whatever scale existed within Ser Jaime’s mind that determined the wealth of men.

But Ser Jaime was not alone with her contempt for Viserys, no one cared for him.

Viserys was everything her father was not, a young man unmarried for reasons she had not understood until an unwary word for two men on duty beneath her secret place had enlightened her to truth. Viserys might have been handsome but where the living Targaryen men were lean Viserys alone was gaunt as his father had been in the end, common wisdom said it was because he was a drunk. Where once his hair had been as silvered as Rhaegar’s now, since his exile to Dragonstone it was greasy and fell in disordered clumps, his lilac eyes rimmed with red. The family disgrace, Viserys had nothing of his own save cruelty and, many feared, madness brimming beneath the surface.

Where King Rhaegar was a man possessed his every waking moment consumed by the stability of the realm through the ancient Valyrian prophecy of a Prince Who Was Promised, Viserys was simply mad. A man whose proclivities saw him removed from the line of succession and denied even the position as banner man. Viserys held no land and no true title, any child born to any of the king’s children pushing him further and further down the line of succession.

And so Viserys drank and added anger to his madness.

No one had yet told him he would not marry Daenerys as he had once thought, another Targaryen marriage of that sort unwise both politically and –well there was a reason a particular kind of madness ran in their veins.

That madness and those political reasons were why Rhaegar obsessed so, the Andal faith listed incest as one of their unforgivable sins and the realm’s lack of tolerance for their line had undone his plans though the realm had already paid in blood and fire. Now King Rhaegar scrambled, searching through the recorded bloodline of each worthy house to find spouses for each of his five children, the three which he had prayed for and the two which had been unintended, searching for any blood of the dragon. The number of acceptable houses was few, the number of suitable partners fewer.

In all of this, Viserys was not considered. This was truth behind truth, both she and Daenerys had dreamed it and all of the things she and Daenerys had dreamed it and all of the things she and Daenerys dreamed were truth. Viserys would sire bastards on his whores but never have a true born child; even her Jaehaerys had seen that. And father would not separate them. He did not dare destroy that terrible intimacy between them. That was why they were still together, father wanted them to dream the truth behind truth as Daenys had dreamed the Doom with enough time for their family to flee from Old Valyria. Other things lurked in the blood of the dragon, things beneath fire and blood that the world had forgotten, the things that had birthed dragons into the world and bound them to Valyria. It was why her mother had been a Stark though their dreams were wilder, less structured and less true.

Why father wanted dragons was not clear, nothing good had come of them in the end, just fire and blood and conflict on a scale Westeros had not known before Aegon the Conqueror. Dragons now would not change that, only let the prideful lands summer for centuries over ancient wrongs and insults. The thought made her head spin, made it rage with pain as the logic of it escaped her understanding. The _why_ of things never seemed to come up, was never questioned by anyone it seemed, never seemed to matter, it was just the way of the world to them. But the way of the world was that it had moved on from dragons and magic but the Targaryens that had come before them had not accepted that as fact.

The _whys_ of her world were clear, her actions logical to any who knew the _whys_. Jaehaerys was hers as she was his, they should never be parted as Ser Jaime should never be parted from his own twin though he was. Ser Jaime withered without her and while he never spoke of Cersei it was not hard to imagine she felt the same, that look could not – 

”I can hear you thinking.” Daenerys said softly into the darkness, a smile in her voice, “I know you are not resting.” How much time had passed since she had answered Daenerys, two or three candle marks in peaceful silence?

And then there was Daenerys though the _why_ of Daenerys was not always clear and refused to be defined. Daenerys could calm her in way that Maester Cressen’s medicaments could not. Maester Cressen’s medicaments did not keep here from dreaming of flame and dragons and more terrible things that would not let her sleep unmolested. Sleeping beside Daenerys did not undo her dreams, could not untwist that magic from her veins any more than Daenerys could untwist it from her own.

”Such is not unusual.” As it was not, were there one thing that was hers alone it was that single thing – Jaehaera thought too much.

”As I well know, Jaehaera.” Dany’s nails scratched gently against her scalp in that way that could undo all of her thoughts effectively as anything else. Mercifully the tension from her spine even temporarily would drive thought away with that tension. Only Dany knew how to touch her so, the truth of that was one neither examined so closely. “What is in your mind now, Jaehaera?”

”Father and Viserys, the realm and the future, Ser Jaime and Jaehaerys.” The things she always thought of, the things had dreamed of this night though Dany had likely dreamed the dragon who they had agreed was the likeness of Aegon –their Aegon. Beneath her ear Dany stiffened, her breath hitching as Viserys’ name fell from Jaehaera’s lips.

Daenerys feared her brother though many a servant treated Viserys. Were he a merry drunk there would be nothing to fear from him, his cruelty masked by wine or ale from the castle’s wine cellar. Some claimed that Viserys was a mean drunk, that the spirit unleashed the anger within him though perhaps Daenerys alone knew the truth of her brother as Jaehaera knew the truth of Jaehaerys. To a man grown Viserys was no threat but to anyone else, anyone who he perceived as weaker or a lesser station there was perhaps no one more dangerous.

”What of him did you see?” the words were slow, soft, measured in a way that meant that Daenerys did not really want to know but must hear nonetheless.

”He will leave Dragonstone though for where I cannot know.” Daenerys hummed her understanding, slender fingers tracing the broad pattern of worry across Jaehaera’s palm. “He tempts fate and death as he dances on the edge of madness.”

Jaehaera waited in the silence growing between them, there was a ritual in this that must be observed, first Jaehaera would speak of her dreams and then Dany would speak of hers. In the quiet early moments of dawn in Jaehaerys had dreamed he would whisper them to her, mindful of guards wary of Targaryen madness and searching for its earliest symptoms –often dragon dreams. All Targaryens had dragon dreams but whether a dragon was a dragon or a dragon was a man was difficult to discern. Not every egg would hatch and not every egg hatched would yield to the one who had hatched it. Dragons were as fickle as men it seemed.

”I dreamed a wolf was hunting, half crazed with hunger and desperation it hunted alone.” This time it was Jaehaera’s turn to flinch, the direwolf was the symbol of her mother’s house and only a fool of a Stark stood alone. A wolf’s strength lay in the pack, in numbers and family. “I did not see what it was hunting though I fear that it may die.”

It was wrong, that Daenerys should dream of wolves and that neither she nor Jaehaerys ever did. But maybe it was because neither she nor Jaehaerys _wanted_ to dream of the Starks, the family they imagined perfect though that could not be true. It was the one delusion that the children of King Rhaegar allowed themselves, that their mothers’ families were perfect. That their mothers’ families were the one salvation that they had.


End file.
